Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Legs of glass

I admit I haven't followed the career of Wanderin Boy at all, though I was aware of him. I was sorry to hear that he broke down in the Cigar Mile this past weekend. The Blood-Horse hardly mentioned his demise in their recap of the race, but I was pleased to see a piece by Steve Haskin today entitled "Wanderin Boy a Fighter to the End." I expected a story of human and equine hardship, fighting together from the bottom rungs of the sport to G1 competition, etc.

Not quite.

Wanderin Boy's career was a fight alright. A fight against extreme unsoundness and against people who refused to acknowledge it. As a foal only a month old, he fractured his sesamoids. As a young horse in training, he fractured a cannon bone. Then he bucked his shins. Then he broke his other cannon bone...

You'd think maybe by this point his owner, trainer, or vet would have said enough already and let Wanderin Boy retire to an easier life. You'd think fractured sesamoids and TWO broken cannon bones might have been a clue that Wanderin Boy was not cut out to be a race horse.

Nope. Hancock, Zito, et al, sent him right back to the track.

Wanderin Boy suffered through a bad foot abcess and then a large stomach ulcer before his sesamoids shattered again on the turn at Aqueduct. He was 7 and remarkably had held together for 24 races and $1.2 million in earnings. He undoubtedly would have been sent to stud had he not broken down. And in that respect only, it's a blessing he did not pass on his genes, but no horse deserves a fate like his. He should have been retired after that second fractured cannon bone, if not after the first one. Why his connections to continued to race him absolutely boggles my mind.

And people wonder why horse racing is losing its fans...